


You Couldn't Have Loved Me Better

by hephaestiions



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, I don't know how chemistry works but I tried anyway, Inspired by Call Me By Your Name, Light Angst, M/M, Peter cries a lot here, Self-Indulgent, i don't know how to tag, this fic is just me going wild with cmbyn feels, this is just really soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 14,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22940383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hephaestiions/pseuds/hephaestiions
Summary: “You’re going to leave.”The muffled words come out wet and strangled against Tony's chest. His heart constricts. But it is the indisputable truth. He doesn’t have any words of comfort to console Peter with, so he does the only other thing he can– clutches Peter tighter.“You’re going to leave,” Peter says, broken and lost, and Tony can’t bear the pain bleeding into his voice.“Yes, I will,” Tony says, trying to keep his tears at bay. “But I don’t think I can forget you.”–Initially, Peter's sure the new summer resident is a right asshole. He's too cocky, he's hogging Peter's room, and he doesn't know what boundaries are.You'd think this story is about his opinions changing, and to an extent it is. But mostly, it's just about Tony Stark's sculpted physique and Peter's inability to keep his eyes off it.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Tony Stark
Comments: 8
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Marvel fic. I wrote this for a friend a while ago, and I didn't intend to post it here, but here we are. I didn't get this beta'd so the mistakes are my fault. I'm not the biggest Peter/Tony fan, but this prompt just sort of chipped away at my resistance till I spun this story and allowed my self-indulgent fantasies to run wild. 
> 
> It isn't as angsty as the summary makes it sound, I promise!

In the year 2000. 

Rhode Island, USA. 

With the sound of the approaching car bumping along the stones of the driveway growing louder every second, Peter jumps off the bed, grabbing his discarded shirt from the bedpost, hurriedly drawing it back over his shoulders. 

MJ’s on the bed, playing with a Rubik’s cube she probably found in one of his bedside drawers, wearing nothing but her ridiculously skimpy underwear– lacy, white and practically transparent. For her, the casual state of almost total undress is not unexpected. She’s always in Peter’s room wearing practically nothing during the summer months, lounging on his bed or his couch, her clothes strewn around on the floor. When she makes no move whatsoever to pick them up and put them on, Peter finds himself compelled to hiss at her, “Clothes!” 

She looks up, startled and he jerks his thumb towards the window. 

“Dude’s here. You don’t want his first impression to be of your thigh tattoo, do you?” 

She rolls her eyes, “One drunk mistake, and you’ll never let me live it down, will you?” 

He grins at her before turning back to the window. “Shut up and put on some clothes while I find out who’s going to live in my room for the next two months, yeah?” He isn’t excited. Intrigued is a better word. The last one had rearranged his entire room according to an interior decorating magazine and the one before had… locked Peter out of his own bathroom. He's stopped expecting normalcy in the summer residents his Aunt and Uncle pick out, but he knows they'll at least be interesting.

The car door opens and a man steps out. He’s short, maybe with an inch or so on Peter. Peter can only see the top of his head– brown strands of mussed hair blowing in the cool, summer breeze. He wants to see the face, half-obscured by sunglasses but the man doesn’t turn his face up in the slightest. Peter can't catch a glimpse from his vantage point at the window. 

In a way, he’s glad for that. He doesn’t know how to face strangers at the best of times. It's to everyone's benefit that he doesn’t face one who’s just arrived, while half leaning out his window. There’s a good chance he’ll fall out, and won't that make for a spectacular first impression? The mere thought of it makes him cringe and duck his head slightly, heat rising to his cheeks. 

Uncle Ben rushes out while the man drags his suitcase out of the back of the car, hand extended, customary smile in place. “Welcome, welcome, we’ve been waiting all morning for you! Benjamin Parker.” 

“Tony Stark,” the man says, shaking Uncle Ben’s hand. “I’m probably shorter than you thought I would be from the picture, but I’m willing to assume that won’t pose too great a problem.” Peter still can’t see his face, but even from the damn tone, he can make out the cocky, charming grin he definitely has. Aunt May smiles, a small, delighted quirk of her lips, before looking up and shouting, “Peter! Show Mr Stark to his room, won’t you?” 

Turning, he bumps straight into MJ, who has pulled on her top and shorts, coming to stand beside Peter by the window. 

“He sounds confident,” he tells her, once he's recovered from slamming his face into her shoulder, nodding towards the man who stands on the patio, conversing with his aunt and uncle. He laughs periodically and talks with a certain surety in his voice that Peter finds disturbingly alluring. It's almost like he's an old friend of the Parkers', with the easy familiarity he's assumed. “I better go down before Aunt May sends up somebody to drag me down there by the ear.” 

MJ shrugs. “I’ll come with you,” she says, straightening her top. 

“Okay.” 

Peter takes the stairs two at a time, bounding into the living room, just as everyone comes in. His aunt smiles warmly before tapping Tony on the arm gently, “Tony, Peter. He's our nephew, I believe we mentioned him in the letter to you? Peter, Tony. He’ll be taking your room, show him up.” 

Peter nods. “I’ll take his luggage?” 

Tony interrupts at this juncture with a, “Yeah, that would be pretty great, thanks, I’m beat.” He takes his sunglasses off, wipes them on his tie and shoots Peter a careless smile before turning back to talk to Uncle Ben. 

Even though he was the one to offer, a surge of annoyance heaves through Peter immediately. Oh, that wasn’t confidence, that was arrogance. Probably one of those rich men with three butlers and twelve bathrooms in some Manhattan penthouse who thought of this place as some leisurely getaway from ‘city life’. Used to everyone doing everything for him, used to everyone bending over backwards for his whims and fancies. Without another word, he grabs the man’s large suitcase and drags it up the stairs. “Follow me,” he mutters, curtly after climbing half the flight. MJ’s waiting at the landing, eyebrows raised, probably recognising the tone he’s assumed. “Asshole,” he mouths at her. “Not you, new guy,” he hastens to clarify, at her offended expression. 

She climbs down the stairs, hips swinging slightly and stops before Tony. Peter looks back to see her pointedly drag her eyes up and down his figure before settling on a simple shrug and a handshake. 

“MJ.”

“Tony.” 

She smiles, looks up at Peter, waves and climbs down the rest of the stairs. “See you later,” she calls over her shoulder. 

“Who was that?” Tony asks him looking over his shoulder. 

“A friend.” 

“Just a friend?” 

Peter looks at Tony, surprised. The man still has a casual smirk on his face, hands shoved into the pockets of his unnecessarily expensive suit. It's evident from the cut of the fabric, the form-fitting lines of it hugging Tony's lean figure. Whatever was annoying him about the man doubles in his chest. 

“Yeah, just a friend. And it isn’t much of your business if I’m being very honest, Mr Stark, I mean, Tony, I mean Mr Ton–” he stops himself mortified. He was doing his level best to appear cold, aloof and pissed off, but all he managed was to come across as the awkward, bumbling nineteen-year-old he can’t seem to outgrow. 

The smirk on Tony’s face widens. He stares at Peter for a long moment with an impish grin dancing on his perfectly arched lips before saying, “All right buddy, whatever you say.” 

Without another word, Peter turns around, bumping Tony’s hefty luggage behind him to his room. When they reach, he throws open the door, dumps the suitcase on the bed and says, “This will be your room.” Tony makes a relieved sound before crashing onto the bed facedown and mumbling something along the lines of, “Finally.” 

“It's mine,” Peter says, opening the bathroom door. “So my shit is still lying around here and there. You gotta learn how to not trip on the books on the floor–” he slams shut a cabinet with a bang, “–but if you’ve got the basics of walking down by now, you should technically be just fine.” He looks back to his guest and discovers Tony is still lying facedown. 

“I’ll be in the next room,” Peter calls out, louder than necessary. “We have to share the bathroom, so don't lock me out unless you want me entering through your door. Call me if you need anything.” 

Tony raises his arm at a weird angle, making what Peter assumes to be a dismissive gesture. Feeling put out, without able to place precisely why, he leaves the room.


	2. Chapter Two

There’s a bell ringing in the distance. 

Tony doesn’t know if it’s a part of reality or part of his dreams, but when he pulls the pillow over his head, the sound is somewhat muffled so, at risk of suffocation, he keeps his head buried under the pillow. 

A few moments later, Peter calls out in an unnecessarily lilting, sing-song voice, “We’re being called to dinner.” 

He pretends to not hear. Maybe if he continues to look asleep, some semblance of pity for his exhausted and tired state will send the boy away. If Tony's very lucky, he might even make excuses to his rather lovely family for why the new guest isn’t going to show for dinner. 

No such luck. 

A book crashes to the floor, shocking Tony into leaping out of bed, a hand to his heart. 

“Sorry,” the kid says with a shrug, not looking even remotely apologetic. “We’re being called to dinner.” 

Tony tries. He really tries to not get mad at the kid. So instead of throwing the pillow at his smug face like he longs to, he yawns and says through it, “I think I’ll pass, yeah? Can you let your Aunt and Uncle know, please? I’m really beat.” 

Peter stares at him for a long moment before turning and walking off, his bare feet padding across the marble floor silently. He leaves the door open, and after a moment, calls over his shoulder, “The first day in and you’re already missing lunch. Aunt May probably won’t mind though. We’ll eat the grilled trout for dinner, when you're less... beat.” With a clatter of nails on the railing, he's gone. Probably to tell his Aunt that the new guest is unfathomably rude, and won't show up though Peter has repeatedly tried to wake him up. 

Damn that bastard. 

He stays in for ten more minutes, willing his eyes to not close. Realising that the bed is about as counterproductive to that as it could get, he stays in for five more minutes before dragging himself out and going to the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Taking a cursory glance at himself in the large mirror above the basin, he discovers he looks as exhausted as he feels. He desperately needs a shave, his hair is unkempt, and his eyes are bleary with darkening shadows under them. He drags his fingers through the mop on top of his head, schooling the bedhead into something presentable. The beard will have to be dealt with later and the shadows… well. He should honestly copyright eyebags now, what with the monopoly he seems to have acquired on 'the-very-worst-purpling-bruises-to-be-seen-as-a-result-of-chronic-insomnia-and-anxiety'. 

He changes into a pair of jeans and a shirt he leaves open at the collar, undoing the top two buttons. He takes the stairs two at a time, hoping the twenty minutes he's wasted will not reflect too badly on him if he shows up. And he really hopes Peter didn't make any snide comments about him to his family. Tony desperately needs this break to be pleasant, to be what a 'break' is supposed to entail. He doesn't want it to be ruined by some teenage boy's pouty scowls. 

When he makes it down the stairs, he hears laughter coming from the back garden. The slightly harried servant he stops also points him in that direction. When he steps out into the sunlight of the backyard which seems to serve as a dining room, Mr Parker calls him over enthusiastically. 

“Ah, Tony, you didn’t have to join us. We would have understood if caught up on some rest. It's been a long journey, son.”

Peter’s face is hidden behind the paper. Tony wants to smash the glass of water on the top of his curly head. He settles instead for a pointed, “I didn’t want to waste too much time sleeping when there are such kind hosts to acquaint myself with.” He softens the bite of it with a smile towards May Parker, who pours him a glass of juice with a surprised laugh. 

Peter lowers the paper for a millisecond, shooting him an incredulous look before raising the damn thing again. Again, it covers everything, except the top of his annoying little head. 

“Ah, he’s a charmer, isn’t he?” Mrs Parker says, passing him the glass. “More juice, dear?” 

“Yes, please.” 

“Me too, Aunt May,” says the paper. Peter. Peter behind the paper, obviously not the paper, not the paper itself. 

Damn the boy. 

Tony doesn’t know why the kid, this nineteen-year-old kid is getting him flustered. But every time the boy scowls at him when he thinks Tony isn’t looking, (which he has done a surprising number of times for someone who has known him for collectively three hours, two of which Tony has spent sleeping) makes him want to spank the shit out of his little cocky ass. Bent over his lap. Naked. 

Oh, he’s screwed. No, no, he wants to screw. Screw Peter. Peter behind the paper. Honestly, screw Peter. There's just something about that boyish surliness and the angles of that face that are far too alluring for Tony's sanity. 

Okay, he really, desperately needs to stop now. 

“Mr Parker, I was wondering if I could be shown around the area today. I’d like to work on my project tonight so having a relaxed evening would be a good thing. Would you be able to suggest where I should go?” Tony asks, attempting to divert himself from the frankly mortifying thoughts plaguing his mind. 

Ben Parker gestures to the newspaper covering Peter’s face and chuckles. “Peter’s the one you should be asking, son. The boy knows everything there is to know about this place better than the palm of his hand. If he weren’t so hell-bent on his science, I’d have sent him off to be a tour guide, yes sir!” 

Tony looks at the paper pointedly. When it comes down, he notices the tips of Peter’s ears have pinked slightly. “There are better things to say about me than how I would be a good tour guide, Uncle,” he grumbles under his breath. 

Ben Parker waves a hand. “Show him around town, Peter. All the churches and the shops and that lake you love so much. And,” he bends over so he’s whispering into Peter’s ear loudly enough for the whole table to hear, “that bar you go to when you think we don’t know.” 

The tips of the boy's ears are positively red now. “Okay, enough,” he says, louder than strictly necessary. “Mr Stark, we’re going out in ten minutes.” He scrambles up, about to take off at a run when Tony interrupts. 

“Peter?” 

The boy turns around, hesitant. 

“Call me Tony.” 

The tentative expression morphs into the familiar scowl and the boy turns and runs across the grass. If his Aunt and Uncle hadn't been sitting there, watching him, Tony's sure he'd have stuck out his middle finger at him. 

“Don’t mind him,” May says, as they watch Peter caper across the lawn together. “Growing up here with us dinosaurs looking after him, he’s always been a bit shy. Never really got used to people coming around here, you know?” She looks up and a fond smile stretches across her kind face. She leans in conspiratorially, beckoning him closer. “If you ask me, it’s because he’s scared to get too attached. They never come back after the summers.” She leans back, patting his arm, before reaching into her inner pocket. Lighting a cigarette, she waves him away. “You want to go with him, you better leave now. He isn’t big on waiting.”


	3. Chapter Three

Peter has decided with surety, and foreboding finality, that his life is a disaster. 

He is the tragic and beautiful Titanic about to crash into a glacier which looks suspiciously like a shirtless Tony Stark on a bicycle, pouring water over his head from a plastic bottle. His hair and skin are already damp from the sweat, and his back muscles are flexing. Droplets cling to the nape of his sculpted neck, much like Peter himself wants to. Jesus, nobody, nobody should look this good riding a damn bicycle. Most people don’t look this good riding someone’s di– 

He’s about to crash, crash and break into splinters, crash and sink into the Atlantic Ocean– 

Crash! 

Bad, bad metaphor. 

Bad, unfortunate, ridiculous. Absolutely catastrophic. This just goes on to show that his life is truly a series of disasters, one after the other. Thinking of crashing, sinking and damp skin, Peter, unable to take his eyes off the man’s unreal biceps– does he live in a damn gym or something– has somehow managed to veer his bicycle’s front wheel into Tony’s rear wheel. Now, both of them are lying on the road, staring up at the mocking clouds with their bikes on top of their ribs. 

Unfortunate. Disastrous. Catastrophic. 

He’s lying there, contemplating and re-contemplating his life, staring at the blue sky, and wanting desperately to evaporate so he can become a fluffy white cloud when Tony scrambles up with a gasp. He balances his cycle, before looking down at Peter who is preparing himself to dig a hole into the ground and live out his life there when Tony starts laughing. Not laughing, guffawing. 

Peter transitions from confused to embarrassed to hurt back to confused and settles on a healthy cocktail of embarrassment and confusion, before asking and dreading the answer “What’s so funny?” 

Tony keeps laughing until he’s almost bent double with his palms on his thighs. Regaining some of his composure, he wipes his eyes, looks at Peter in the eye and says, “If you were my professional tour guide, you’d be fired right about now.” 

Peter tries his hardest to scowl but somehow, after seeing Tony laugh, he can’t bring himself to do it. Cracking a grin, he shrugs as best as he can with the handlebar of his bike lying on his chest and says, “Good thing I’m hell-bent on the science, then.” 

Tony smiles. “Good thing, indeed. Now would you mind not having an existential crisis in the middle of the road? Get that bike off.” He holds out a hand, expectantly raising his eyebrows. Peter stares at the extended hand for a few moments, marvelling at the popping veins before he realises exactly what he’s doing. He flushes up to the roots of his hair, even though Tony probably has no idea what he was looking at. 

“Um, yeah,” he mumbles, grabbing the bike and pushing it off before sitting up and wincing. He ignores Tony’s hand, gets up and steadies the cycle before seating himself. “Come on. It’s not a long way home.” 

Peter doesn’t know if it is his mind playing tricks or his eyes, but Tony almost looks disappointed when he draws back the proffered hand. 

He makes sure to stay well ahead of the man this time. 

Not that Tony stops asking questions. 

“I want to get some prints done tomorrow. Where do you think I should go?” 

Peter considers. “The shop behind the church. They’ll give you good quality for a good price.” 

“Will you come with me?” 

Peter considers again. He winces at the sharp reminder his ribs give him, but against his better judgement says, “Uh, sure.” 

“So what do you do around here?” 

Peter now considers backpedalling into Tony’s cycle intentionally. He’s trying to ignore the man (and his dick by default. Not Tony’s, his own, but wait, also Tony’s. Shit. Now he’s thinking about Tony’s dick) but his voice intruding on his thoughts isn’t conducive to that. He counter-questions, “What do people do or what do I do?” 

“You.” 

Peter’s breath stutters a little when he hears that one syllable dropping in Tony’s rich baritone. Oh, he knows, he already knows it’s going to feature in his thoughts tonight when he has some time to himself. 

“I read,” he says, impressed when his voice comes out even, not ridiculously breathless. “I work on some projects, hang out with Ned and MJ, read some more.” 

“Sounds…” 

“Boring?” 

“A bit.” 

Peter laughs. “It can be. If I’m not careful, I fall asleep by the pool and when I wake up whatever I was working on is too wet to salvage.” 

“What are you working on?” 

“Right now?” 

“Yeah,” Tony says. 

Peter doesn’t respond. Tony doesn’t push, but after they reach and stack the bicycles up against the wall, he looks inquisitive when Peter gestures to him to come. 

They take the stairs. When they pass the floor of Peter’s bedroom, Tony asks, “Where are we going?” 

“You’ll see.” 

The attic is a crowded space. It has a torn-up sofa right in the middle of it, a pile of junk behind the sofa and smaller piles scattered all around. Peter knows what Tony with his Manhattan upbringing is thinking– probably mentally computing the cost of getting all his clothes dry cleaned, or something equally posh. But when Tony turns around to face him after looking around for a minute, he doesn’t wrinkle his nose or look disgusted. Instead, he asks the question Peter was least expecting. 

“What’s behind that door?” 

He points to the far wall of the attic, at the decaying door that looks about ready to fall off its hinges. It’s unassuming. Anyone who lands up in the attic is fairly likely to want to go back down the stairs immediately, deterred by the dust and the possibility of insects in the sofa, rather than explore the door. 

But Tony… 

Peter grins. 

“Come with me.”


	4. Chapter Four

Beyond the door, Tony discovers a laboratory. 

Or a makeshift laboratory. Or whatever one gets when they cross an attic with a lot of test tubes, chemicals, and a large floor to ceiling window. The walls are covered with pages and pages of notes, drawings and charts. 

“This,” Peter says, walking in, stretching out his arms, “is home.” 

“The whole place is your home,” Tony reminds him, looking around at the sketches strewn everywhere. “What is all this?” 

“Two-room attic. You see the first room, and you won’t think to go into the second. I stay here without anyone coming to check on what I’m doing or–” he holds up a large bottle of clear liquid, “telling me off for it.” 

“Is this stuff potentially dangerous?” Tony asks him, incredulous and mildly impressed. 

“Keyword being 'potentially',” says Peter. The accompanying grin does nothing to reassure Tony but now he's impressed beyond belief. 

“Your Uncle and Aunt have no idea?” 

“Oh, they know. When I first came here from New York, I used to sit in here and stare out of the window. I didn’t like the place, the people, I missed New York and I just wanted to–” he shrugs, “–be alone. They got that. They let me be here and do nothing for hours on end. They didn’t come in, and that just stuck. They know where to find me if they need me, but they don’t… come in.” 

Tony tries to imagine a younger Peter, sitting here and mourning his home, his parents and creating this sanctuary for himself. He moves on to the wall, tracing a sketch with his finger. It’s carefully made– the molecular structure of carbon. There are scribbles beside and all around it which Tony needs more time and a magnifying glass to decipher. 

“Why’d you bring me here?” 

Peter looks away, shrugging. “Just wanted to know what you thought of it. I mean, before you came, Uncle said you had some expensive workshop in your house. He said you build things, and you’ve always been interested in this stuff so I just thought– Well, what do you think of it?” 

Tony looks around, before pulling over a rickety chair that almost gives out beneath him when he sits on it. “Working on anything right now?” he asks, without answering Peter’s question. Truth be told, he can’t form an opinion. He doesn’t know whether to tell the kid off for putting himself at risk with harmful substances or to praise him for having the balls. The scientist in him longs to sit and interpret the sketches. He reminds Tony of himself at that age, and he can’t determine yet if that is a good thing or not. 

“Yes,” Peter says. He doesn’t meet Tony’s eyes, staring instead at the far wall with the carbon molecule sketches. 

“Care to show me?” 

“Oh it’s– it’s still just a plan, bit of a faulty prototype, don’t really know how to work with it yet…” 

“Show me.” 

Peter turns to look at him. His face is uncertain and hesitant but his eyes are shining. “You really want to know?” 

“Yes,” Tony replies, with a decisive nod. 

The smile stretching across Peter's face accelerates his heartbeat. Before he can berate himself for it, Peter launches into a detailed explanation, and Tony is caught up yet again in the intricacies of science. 

When they’re done, or rather, when Peter looks at his watch and says matter-of-factly, “We’ll be called to dinner in an hour,” getting up, shooting Tony an expectant look, his mind is whirling. 

He’s never really been all that interested in Chemistry- it was the added portion that he had to do, to do what he wanted to do. Engineering had been his calling, so he never really focused on Chemistry as a subject. Physics had been his one true love through high-school and college. “Side-chick, mate,” Tony would say with a grin whenever Rhodey reminded him exasperatedly of his assignments. “You never really give her that much time- she only thinks you do.” 

But this kid… fuck, this kid makes it look like an art. 

He’s fluid when he explains his theories in a way Tony isn’t. Tony always has too much going on in his head to explain things clearly, to express his thoughts and their process. He goes fast- he speaks fast, he thinks fast, he does things fast. He tries to explain one thing but after an hour, he’s explaining something so different that he can’t even trace the conversation back to its roots. No one can keep up with him, no one understands what the hell he’s trying to say. 

But this kid, he explains things just as fast as Tony, he speaks almost as quickly, but he knows where his focus is. He goes from topic to topic like an experienced lecturer, he’s… fluid. The web fluid he’s trying to make is ridiculously complex but the way he explains it makes it seem like anyone could just keep experimenting and logically reach the results he did. It makes Tony feel… ridiculously aroused if he is being honest. Intelligence has always turned him on. 

Chemistry shouldn’t look like an art, Tony thinks, not quite able to snap out of the daze Peter has put him in. But then, he thinks distractedly watching Peter’s backside sway slightly as he climbs down the stairs a few steps ahead of Tony, someone’s shoulders, while they climb down some stairs, shouldn’t look like a masterpiece either but here they are.


	5. Chapter Five

While they're going back down, Peter takes the steps two at a time, Tony following at a more sedate pace. Peter finds himself wishing he had never shown the man his attic because now, he refuses to stop asking questions. 

It's not that Peter minds answering the questions. In fact, he's delighted by the interest and the challenging questions because no one else seems to ever understand what he's going on about. It's just that with each passing moment, Peter realises with doomed certainty that Tony Stark, besides being a gorgeous specimen of manhood, hides intense intellectualism under that mop of brown hair. The mop of brown hair that Peter itches to run his fingers through. 

“…the carbon fibres mesh together with the gel to create that?” Tony asks. 

Peter hears the tail end of the question, immersed in his deliberations of the cadence of the man’s voice, completely missing what he was actually trying to say. 

“Sorry, what?” 

“In your spider web fluid, the carbon fibres mesh together with the gel to create the shooting stuff?” Tony repeats. 

“Uh, uh yeah.” 

“Peter,” Tony says, stopping at the landing, causing Peter to look up to face him. The man is looking at him with a serious expression, and Peter steels himself to be told he’s going down a wrong path, or that he’s just starting out and has potential, or something equally patronising.

When Tony says, "I'm impressed," with a nod of his head, Peter can't help the involuntary, wide smile that stretches across his lips. 

“Hey um, you mind if I go into my room for a couple minutes? I need a break after all that talking and uh,” he gestures vaguely. 

“Sure,” Tony says. “I’ll see if I can get a head start on my project.” 

“Yeah, see you at dinner.” 

“Till dinner.” 

Peter rushes into the bathroom connecting his room to the outside corridor, and sits on the floor, taking deep, fortifying breaths. He hopes to heaven that Tony doesn’t need to use the shower or the toilet right now. He needs to have a well-deserved breakdown in Tony-less peace and Tony-less quiet. 

The man is ten years older than him. Ten whole years. He’s close to his thirties, and Peter is still a teenager. He's barely a legal adult. These thoughts are inappropriate. He really needs to stop thinking about how that stubble would feel against his chin if they kissed, or against his thighs if they did something else or how that hair would feel curled around his fingers if he ran his hands through it. 

He needs, he desperately needs to stop before it goes any further and does more harm than an uncomfortable tightness in his pants. They’re almost on the way to becoming friends, becoming something other than the initial hostile standoff they were having, and it’s a good thing. Tony understands Peter’s mad love for the laboratory even though his interests lie in Physics. Peter is more into the biochemistry aspect of things, but Tony catches on to the explanations Peter gives. He understands them at the level and depth that Peter does. It’s the first time a summer resident has bothered to give him this much time without saying, “Your Uncle called me to his study.” That’s the excuse they always use, and his Uncle has never called anyone to his study for personal discussions. 

Tony seems different. They have a good thing going. Peter can’t ruin that just because he would hump the man given a chance. Right? 

He takes a few more deep gulps of air, before steeling his resolve. Not a peep about this to anyone, not a word and only look when he’s not looking. 

Oh, but he has looked today. He has been looking all day. He has been watching the way Tony’s white shirt clung to his chest with sweat before he took it off. How utterly delectable his bronzed skin looked in the afternoon sun. The way he flexed his arms and stretched when he stood in one position for too long, the way he ran his fingers through his hair when he felt too hot, ruffling it. He’s been looking and right now he can’t get those images out of his head. 

Fervently hoping that luck is on his side, he reaches into his pants and grabs his dick. He’s been hard for a while and he’s chafing against the tight shorts. Closing his eyes, he thinks of Tony with his arms behind his head, biceps rippling, tantalising smirk in place that Peter wants to kiss right off. The way he says Peter’s name, rolling the 'r' ever so slightly has Peter thanking his parents for picking out a name that rolls off the man's tongue like molten chocolate. The way his chiselled torso slims down to his hips is a walking wet dream. Peter's mind wanders to what lies below those hips, thinking of Tony taking his shorts off and allowing Peter to wrap his hand around his dick. He'd get Tony off, slow strokes at first– gentle, teasing, until Tony was gasping from the friction. The man might be older, but Peter knows how to play. He knows how to work it, knows how to elicit loud, surprised and wanton gasps. He would tighten his grip on Tony's undoubtedly beautiful cock, and pick up the pace, taking care to swirl a finger around the overstimulated head with every upward stroke. 

Maybe even reach down and swipe his tongue through the gathering pre-come at the slit. Drive him mad, leave him breathless. 

His own hand quickens over his dick, fingers working on it the same way he imagines working them on Tony. He feels his orgasm approaching, the warmth curling in the pit of his stomach. With his moans getting harder to restrain, he shoves his fist into his mouth to muffle the sound, while the other continues to fly over his dick. 

When he can’t hold back anymore, his hips buck slightly on the floor and his ass lifts gently from the ground. With come spurting all over his fingers and the shorts, he murmurs Tony’s name into the hand in his mouth. It comes out as an unintelligible gasp that’s loud and sudden all at once. 

While he’s catching his breath on the floor, thinking about just how utterly fucked he is, in the ebbing afterglow of his orgasm, the sudden knock on the door startles him terribly. 

“Hey,” Tony says from the other side, concern lacing his tone. “I heard a sound, you okay?” 

“Y-yeah,” Peter manages, doing his best to keep his voice steady. “Just slipped on one of these loose tiles. You probably will too, soon. In fact, I hope you do. The experience isn't authentic unless you have a bruised tailbone from one of these bad boys.” 

“Oh, alright,” Tony laughs. “You have a unique way of treating your guests, Peter Parker.” 

“Is that so?” Peter questions, only half his mind on the conversation, while he throws his stained shorts into the basket under the basin, wiping his hands on the toilet paper. He absently notices that the roll is close to running out. 

“Can’t say I don’t like it.” 

Peter chokes on his saliva, dropping the role and the remaining paper unravels on the floor. 

"Fuck," he curses, shutting his eyes. 

It sums up his situation fairly accurately.


	6. Chapter Six

A week passes. 

Tony is working steadily on his research- something about a gold-titanium alloy and using it to make armour. Peter's pretty sure no one uses armour for anything other than filming period movies anymore but well, each to their own. After all, he makes web fluid for no good reason. 

He does have an idea for how it could be used, but for it to be viable, the fluid needs to be of standard industrial-grade strength, multiplied about twenty times. He doesn’t know how to do that yet. He needs someone to sponsor that research and a proper laboratory to work in. Nobody will be willing to provide those. He’s just a kid with an overambitious plan. America sees a million of those every day and turns them away at the door. The only person who hasn’t laughed at his ideas yet is Tony. But Tony isn’t exactly someone Peter can rely on, count on, or expect anything from. 

Except for the wank-bank material. Tony provides some excellent wank-bank material, and Peter doubts he'll stop anytime soon. Absolutely top-notch. Even his posh table-manners are sexy. 

But putting the innumerable stained boxers and increased sex drive aside, Tony is nothing more than a summer resident for two months. Once summer ends, he'll be gone. Peter can’t afford to have astronomical expectations of a man he will probably never see again. No matter how much he likes the man or how much he wants to get fucked by him or hold on to the warm feeling of being understood when he speaks- he can’t. To even speculate about something like that is to set himself up for disappointment. 

So in that week, Peter focuses on his projects, hangs out with MJ downtown, trying to not think about Tony’s casual good-mornings and sleepy good-nights said out on the balcony, where the fading blue light tinges his dark lips black. 

There’s a party in the backyard tonight. Uncle Ben with his, “The kids are just working, May- they gotta have some fun!” organised it with music and drinks and dancing. 'Young people' of the whole neighbourhood (a bit of a broad term, given they could be anywhere between sixteen to thirty) have come in for a night of simple fun. There are boys in shorts, and girls in skimpy summer dresses which reveal more than they cover, grinding on each other, spilling drinks, giggling and laughing. 

Tony’s right in the thick of things– dancing, pulling in a couple of people, sometimes two of them at once. Everyone gravitates towards him, trying to sneak in a dance- whether its a quick jig or slower. Peter, who usually stays out of these things, preferring to watch from the sidelines feels irrationally jealous of the attention Tony seems to get. He has no clue where it comes from- the prickling envy as he watches Tony place his hands on Pepper’s hips, swinging her around while Sharon claps, cheering. There are other couples- partners or friends having fun, but almost everyone is occasionally sneaking a glance at Tony. He's dressed in a white t-shirt and slacks, looking completely at ease amid strangers, being generally brilliant at socialising. It's a feat Peter hasn’t managed in nineteen years and is quite sure he won’t manage in twenty-nine. He hasn't spoken to half the number of people Tony has danced with in the space of a couple of hours in his years of staying here. 

“He looks like he’s having fun,” he hears, over the music. He turns to see MJ at his elbow, eyeing him carefully. He nods, trying to remain noncommittal, keeping his eyes from straying towards Pepper gyrating her slim hips against Tony's. MJ comes closer and says, “Unlike you.” 

“You know I never enjoy these things.” 

She nods. “But you at least try to look like a good host. Today you look like someone burned down your lab.” 

Swallowing the rest of the fruity punch in his cup, he mutters, “Don’t even joke about it.” 

MJ places a gentle hand between his shoulder-blades. “Hey, PP, come on, man. If you’re feeling that terrible about it, we could just get out of here. No one’s going to notice.”

He protests immediately. He can’t make her miss out on a party she came to have fun at. 

She raises her eyebrows. “You’re the friend I came for. If you don’t want to be here, we can leave.” 

He looks back at the dance floor where Tony’s speaking to the DJ (if the sixteen-year-old in charge of the jukebox can be called that) with three women hanging off his every word. His arm is wrapped around Pepper’s waist and she has a lovestruck expression on her face he’s sure he’s not supposed to notice. If he ever brings it up, every outcome of the conversation is going to result in him sustaining some injury. Most likely to his delicate nether regions, a possibility he doesn't want to dwell on. 

He looks back at MJ, who’s tapping her nails against the side of her glass, and nods. She smiles knowingly. Putting the glass down on a table near them, she grabs his wrist and pulls him towards the woods at the back with which the backyard merges. 

“Where are we going?” he asks as she pulls him further into the woods. 

“The pond,” she says, looking back at him. 

“Are we skinny dipping?” he asks her, grinning. 

“Well, if you want to,” she shrugs, smiling back. 

“Oh, you know I do.” 

They get into the pool, MJ still in her underwear. Peter forewent the boxers today under his regular shorts, so he simply catapults into the cold pool without anything on. MJ giggles at him. 

“Your ass,” she says between snorts, “looks like the moon in the darkness. It’s so pale.” 

Stifling his laughter, he sprays water at her with the heel of his hand. It's cold and rather dirty, and she shrieks when it hits her eyes. “Parker, you fucking bastard!” 

“You were saying?” Peter says cheekily. 

“Oh fuck you,” she screeches, swimming rapidly towards him. Her pale arms cut through the water like the fins of a great white, and really, she's one to talk about looking luminescent in the dark. The only reason he isn't making lewd comments about her arse is that it's covered. 

He rushes away, but she’s too fast. He feels her long fingers grip him around his ankle. She pulls, dunking his head underwater and he goes down laughing hysterically at the ticklish sensation on his feet. She buries her hands in his hair and keeps him there, till he kicks at her feet, unable to breathe. When he surfaces, gasping and panting, her hands are still in his hair. Her eyes are bright with mischief and her mouth is curving up at the corners. 

The reality of the situation sinks in like awareness does when one wakes up, groggy and bleary in the morning from a confusing dream. There’s a vague understanding of the world and the surroundings initially, but with every passing second, clarity hits harder and harder until everything is in such stark focus that it's uncomfortable. 

He’s pushed up against MJ in no clothes, his dick pressing against her hip. She’s wearing practically nothing herself- the water making her white underwear cling to her body like a second skin. There have never been secrets between them, no shame or unnecessary, misplaced guilt. They’ve seen everything. In fact, they’ve done this before- the skinny dipping that led to kissing, leading to groping. But they haven't gone further for some reason or another. Once it was Peter pushing her away, scared it would change their dynamic. Another time it was MJ moving away with downcast eyes, saying she liked someone else. Its always been casual between them, no hard feelings or expectations- just another way to get to know each other better. 

This time something feels different. Something feels charged. He feels the weight of unfamiliar expectations on his wet shoulders, pressing down on his chest. He doesn’t know if they are his or MJ’s but he is aware of their presence which hangs over their heads. 

She presses closer to him, and his hands slide down to her hips. Peter tries to pretend he’s shivering because of the cold, but the truth is the water has nothing on the strange feeling rushing up and down his spine. He keeps his eyes on her, noticing the way her gaze drifts down to his mouth. 

“What are we doing, MJ?” he asks her, quietly. It's loud in the surrounding silence. 

She says nothing for a moment. Then, with her eyes fluttering shut she whispers, “Skinny dipping.” 

In a matter of moments, her lips are on his, his mouth parting under her soft ministrations. This feels familiar, comfortable, good. This is MJ and MJ is his best friend and they have done this before. He opens his mouth, her tongue sliding against his, while his teeth scrape her bottom lip gently. She smiles against his mouth, filling it with the questionable taste of salty pond-water and chapstick, making him smile right back. 

Her hands slide lower and lower until they are almost on his dick. His hands traverse up her sides, the water smoothening his path. He traces the outline of her breasts through the flimsy material of her bra, feeling the softness of her flesh, the delicacy of her skin. She’s almost touching him there, and he closes his eyes to feel it when– 

Tony. 

Behind his eyelids, all he can see is Tony. Not his biceps or his ridiculously defined abs. Instead, his dance moves in the fading twilight, his smile as he enjoys himself thoroughly is a video running on repeat through Peter's mind. The way he puckers up his lips when he’s concentrating, the little cleft between his brows becoming more pronounced. There’s Tony in his head and his heart, while MJ shudders in his arms. 

All of a sudden everything feels out of place. 

The feeling of MJ’s soft palms is wrong. The phantom sensation of Tony's calloused palms on his shoulder blades makes him shudder and gasp. The smoothness of her, the curves, the expectations, everything is wrong. Whatever desire he felt when he started this fades in the fraction of a second. The water is too cold, his thoughts too loud, and in record time he has extracted himself from her searching arms. Though her confused, “Peter?” breaks his heart, he can’t stay there any longer. 

He swims away towards the edge of the pool and pulls on his boxers, completely ignoring her frustrated and concerned cries to come back and sort it out. He rushes off through the woods in the direction of the house, tripping on brambles. 

The party has died down when he reaches. Tony isn’t out in the backyard any longer. “Where’s Tony?” he asks a girl who has her feet propped up on some guy’s lap. 

She waves in the vague direction of the house, without paying him much mind. Her toes are doing something on the guy's thigh that Peter would rather not think about. He steps away, mind still whirling. 

Creeping up to his room like a burglar in his own home, he hopes against hope that Tony isn’t in his. For once, it seems luck truly is on his side. Both his room and Tony’s room are empty. 

He rushes into the bathroom, dry heaving into the basin a few times, before splashing water onto his face. His heart is racing, and his entire body is trembling from the guilt of what he did to MJ. 

I’ll speak to her tomorrow, he tells himself, looking at his reflection in the mirror. 

An unwelcome memory of Tony smiling endearingly at some stupid joke at the dinner table crosses his mind at that moment. 

He buries his head in his hands and groans.


	7. Chapter Seven

Tony wakes up to bright sunlight. 

He checks the time, finding it to be extraordinarily early by his standards. For someone dead to the world before 10 am, it is a blessed miracle to be up by 7. He tries to shut his eyes to go back to sleep but something doesn’t let him. The sunlight is too bright, the air in the room too stifling, and he just can’t get comfortable. 

Sighing, he forces himself to sit up and drags himself out of bed. He enters the shared bathroom after rapping on the door sharply a few times. He’d rather not confirm the images his mind seems hell-bent on conjuring up at all times. 

Raised voices are coming from downstairs, Tony finds out, exiting his room. The matter might be familial, he thinks, feeling slightly awkward. He should just leave but Peter’s raised voice attracts his attention. The boy is calm by nature, staying out of most conversations, so to hear him in the thick of an argument is intriguing. 

“…guest in my house!” he hears the tail end of the sentence. Peter’s frustrated and anger drips from every word. His uncle’s response is too low to catch. 

“Damn right I’ll make a scene!” Peter cries out, indignant. “I want my own room back- why can’t these guests just take the guest room?” 

Tony’s mouth falls open. That’s what the argument is about? 

This time Benjamin Parker’s response is louder. “You’ve never reacted this way to sharing a room, what’s gotten into you child?!” 

Peter’s next words come out defeated, “I don’t know. He can stay in the room. I just–”

He turns around before Tony can pretend he wasn’t eavesdropping and catches sight of him on the staircase. 

“I was just coming down–”

Peter simply stares at him, eyes dead. “You can do whatever the hell you like. The place is yours- think of it as home.” 

He stalks off before Tony can get in another word. 

He stays rooted to the spot, dumbfounded by the conversation and Peter’s hostility when a slight sound startles him. Ben’s standing in the doorway of his study with a resigned expression. “He doesn’t mean any of that, Tony. Something’s eating at him, and he won’t just come out and say what, so he pretends to be angry. He's always done that.” 

Tony shakes his head rapidly. “No, I, I thought we were getting along really. I must have done something to upset him, I–”

Ben holds up a hand. “Spare yourself the misery of trying to understand him in a mood like that. Maybe you did. But it probably wasn’t your fault.” 

Before Tony can make any sense of that, Ben moves away with a small smile and the study door clicks shut. He’s left alone on the staircase. 

He waits a minute, trying to decide what to do. He hesitates before complying with what his mind suggests he should do- find Peter and apologise for whatever he did. He rushes back up the stairs to the room Peter’s supposed to be in, only to find it empty. So's the bathroom. Remembering the lab upstairs, he runs up to find the second attic door locked from the outside. 

At a complete loss, he comes back down, heading to the kitchen, with some small hope that Peter will be there, but of course, he isn’t. Only the old help is standing there, mixing batter in a large pan. 

“Marjorie, has Peter been around?” 

She looks up, a smile on her brown face. “No, love. He's rarely around in the kitchen. He’s always up in that attic tinkering around or in the lake.” 

“The lake?” Tony asks, confused. 

“He hasn’t shown you?” She asks, surprised. 

He shakes his head. 

“There’s a lake beyond the woods. There’s the pond in the woods that the Parkers own, but Peter’s always loved the lake in the summer months. He’s a great swimmer, hasn’t he told you that?” 

“No he hasn’t,” Tony calls out, already heading for the door. 

He reaches what he assumes is the lake Marjorie told him about by cycling through the woods for a good fifteen minutes. It’s at the other end of the grove- quite a distance to walk but not so much by the bike. If this is where Peter's hiding, it's probably because he doesn’t want to be found. 

Ducking under the heavy branches of the trees, some of which scrape the ground, he reaches the edge of what appears to be a very large pond. Not a real lake by any standards, but definitely larger than the pond in the woods. 

There's a ripple on the other edge of the pool and a very pale, white arm cutting through the water. Tony sits down, waiting for Peter to surface, trying to think of what to say. He doesn't even know what's gotten Peter so furious, so it's hard to apologise without setting off the boy into a bigger strop. 

Peter surfaces, swiping his wet hair out of his face without noticing Tony. When Tony calls out to him, his whole body jerks in astonishment. Seeing him, however, Peter's features morph immediately into the scowl Tony is really getting rather tired of seeing. 

“What do you want?” Peter asks, from the other end, raising his voice. 

He holds up his hands in surrender, hoping Peter takes it to be a truce. “I want to talk to you, is that okay?” 

Peter’s scowl doesn’t diminish but he wades further into the water, coming closer to Tony. 

“I want to apologise for whatever I did that’s gotten you so angry.” 

Peter huffs a laugh. “If only you– Why would you even– God, you're so fucking–" He clenches his teeth in frustration. "For Christ’s sake, Tony, you haven’t done anything.” 

“But you’re mad at me.” 

“Do you really care?” Peter asks, looking away. 

It sparks something in Tony’s chest. “What the fuck do you want?” he asks, perplexed. 

Peter huffs another bitter laugh and says, “Don’t ask me that.” 

“Why not?” Tony demands, bewildered. 

Peter says nothing, swimming closer instead. Marjorie was right– he is a good swimmer- agile, fast and graceful. When he reaches Tony, he looks up like a dolphin peering out of its comfort zone. With only his face above the water, he looks away and quietly says, “I don’t think you want to know the answer.” 

Tony doesn't have a response to that. 

They wait that way for a while– Peter with his hands curled around the edge of the lake and Tony staring into the water. 

“I almost had sex last night,” Peter says, suddenly. 

The words are so out of place that Tony has to hold back a burst of incredulous laughter. “And?” he asks instead. “Almost?” 

Peter shrugs, his wet shoulders touching the edges of his hair. “I couldn’t.” 

“Performance issues?” Tony teases. 

Peter looks back at him. The intensity in his gaze surprises Tony. “If performance issues looked like you.” 

The words hit him like a kick to the chest. He stares at Peter, who’s staring right back at him, looking fierce, defiant and terrified all at once. He longs for what he now knows Peter wants, what Tony's been wanting from the moment the boy opened his stupid, snarky mouth the first time. He wants it so desperately that he can almost taste the desire on his tongue. 

But he has to be the adult here. Has to put a stop to this even though his heart is singing at the knowledge that he isn’t alone. 

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asks once, just to confirm. 

“What else could I possibly mean?” 

“Peter, you know–” he sucks in a deep breath, “You know we can’t do this.” 

“Because you don’t want to?” Peter’s stare is unnerving. 

“No, Jesus, I–”

“So, you do want to?” 

“Peter, stop it, we can’t, you know that–”

“Hell no, I don’t!” Peter says immediately, voice raised. “Hell no, I don’t fucking know, don’t have a damned clue why we can’t do this if we both want to.” 

“For propriety’s sake!” Tony cries out. 

In a flash, Peter’s hand reaches out from the water and grabs Tony’s clothed dick through his shorts. Tony can barely hold back a gasp. His eyes flutter, against his will, and with immense self-control, he abstains from reacting in any way that would encourage this further. 

“Are you thinking of propriety right now?” Peter asks, his voice pitched low. Tony simply looks at him– the way the droplets of water are clinging to his freckled cheekbones, his hair, the slope of his shoulders. He gently reaches out and places his hand on Peter’s, pulling it away from his crotch. 

“Peter, stop.” 

Peter lowers his eyes. “Did I offend you?” he asks, voice small, contrasting shockingly against the bold confidence he displayed moments ago. 

“No!” Tony says, lifting Peter's chin up, cupping his face in his hands. “No, Peter, no. But we can’t do this. We can’t do this.” 

Peter’s sighs and drops his head. “I know,” he says quietly. “I knew all along, and I didn’t tell you or anyone and yesterday I… I just couldn’t. Not anymore.” 

“Get out of the damn water,” Tony says after a moment. “You’ll catch a cold.” 

“I’ve been in this water more times than I care to count. I’ll be fine.” 

“Peter.” 

The defiance intensifies in Peter’s eyes. Instead of swimming away or spraying him with water or something equally childish that Tony half expected from Peter, the boy reaches out and places both his palms on the grassy shoreline of the lake. The wind creates waves that lap against his back and with his eyes fixed on Tony, he heaves himself out of the water in one graceful move, landing on his feet like a cat beside Tony. 

The inside of Tony’s mouth dries up. 

“Peter, stop.” 

The boy smirks. “But you see, I’m not even doing anything,” he says, raising his arms in mock surrender. 

It’s too much. The wet expanse of bared skin before him; the teasing, coy grin; the lithe movements– everything becomes too much for Tony to handle. With a growl, he grips Peter’s left bicep with one hand, pulling him closer, placing his other hand on the boy's nape. The action is clearly abrupt because Peter’s eyes widen in obvious surprise. His tongue peeks out, unconsciously tracing his bottom lip as his hands hesitantly come up to wrap around Tony’s shoulders. 

“You will be the death of me, Peter Parker,” is all Tony manages, drawing the boy in closer, gently pressing their lips together.


	8. Chapter Eight

Peter has played this kiss out many times in his head. There are a hundred different ways in which it goes- a crushing of their mouths mid-argument, a tender, gentle union under the stars after they've revealed their feelings for each other. Maybe even a laughing collision after a good joke. 

But this– this kiss with Tony’s warm hands pressing against his arms, his back, his neck, his goatee scraping against Peter’s chin, the chill in the air as the breeze blows against his wet skin- this surpasses his imagination. It is beyond anything he could have anticipated in a million dreams. 

There is no collision, no scraping of teeth and tongue and chapped lips. Peter’s mouth is wet and slow against Tony’s soft lips, their movements unhurried and gentle. There is nothing wild or primal, but something fundamental has shifted in Peter’s world. Something that won’t go back to its original resting place in the secret caverns of his hidden desires after this. Tony has ignited a fire in every cell of him, and it is burning him up from the inside.

When they break away, Peter can’t help the soft sound that escapes him in a rush of air. “Please,” he says, chasing Tony's lips slightly, unsure what he is even asking for. 

“Please, what?” Tony asks, a tinge of concerned amusement lacing his words. Peter opens his eyes to find an unsure, shy smile gracing Tony's perfect, arched lips. They aren't kiss-swollen or torn, but instead, deliciously plumped. 

“Please don’t say no to this,” he beseeches, looking into Tony's eyes. 

Tony looks away, back at the lake. 

“How can I say yes?” 

“It’s simple,” Peter says, placing his hand on Tony’s thigh. “Look at me, I’ll teach you.” 

Tony turns back to look at him. The brown of his eyes are pools of swirling anxiety. 

“It goes like this,” Peter says, leaning closer, trying to mask his shaking insecurity with suggestiveness. “I ask you if you are okay with this,” closer, closer, they’re almost touching again, “and you say, yes.” 

Yes, Tony murmurs against his lips and they are kissing again, lips moving with urgency. Peter gently parts his, and Tony’s tongue slips in. There’s something leisurely in their pace, in their unhurried exploration of each other's mouths, but the force and possessiveness with which Peter pulls Tony closer, almost trying to attach him to his own body, speak of wanton desperation. 

They break apart after what feels like mere seconds and long years all at once, gasping for breath, faces alight with wide smiles. 

“I can’t say no to this, Peter,” Tony says after a while, his hands toying with the wet curls at the back of Peter’s head. “But I don’t know how appropriate it is for me to say yes.” 

“No one’s got to know if you don’t want them to.” 

Tony smiles, though the corners of it are tight. “Alright then.” 

They go back to the house. 

Tony goes to change into clean clothes leaving Peter whistling merrily downstairs. With the reality of the morning enveloping him in a warm, happy haze, the furious anger of earlier fades to nothing. But when Peter reaches the kitchen to find Marjorie, his wet shirt clinging to his skin, he finds MJ there, delicately inspecting her nails. She’s wearing the skirt she wore to the party last night, and there are dark circles under her eyes. Peter pauses in the doorway, horror flooding him. 

“MJ.” It comes out hoarse, scraping against the back of his throat like a fishbone lodged in his windpipe. 

“Peter.” She doesn’t look up. 

“I…” 

She says nothing. 

“MJ, I’m sorry.” 

She looks up at him, and he notices for the first time how red her eyes are. “Sorry for?”

“Leaving like that yesterday. It– it wasn’t you.” 

She barks out a shrill laugh. “It wasn’t? So you running away like dogs were chasing you down was all just you? You don’t say!” 

“MJ,” he sighs. “It really wasn’t you. I was having trouble.” 

“Is this about Tony?” she asks. A plaintive note creeps into her voice, as though she wants assurance that the inevitability of Tony Stark is what ripped Peter from her arms, not her mistakes.

He hesitates for a beat before answering. “Yes.” 

“Do you love him?” 

“Not yet.” 

She says nothing for a few minutes, merely looking down at her hands. The silence is awkward, almost stifling. Peter shifts from one foot to another, about to apologise once more when MJ asks, “Am I your girl, Peter?” 

The question is unexpected. It's obvious from the note of longing in her voice that she definitely wants to be. He takes a minute to simply look at her– the familiar curves, her beautiful hair piled up on top of her head. He recalls the memories of dancing with her on his bed to old music they found in Uncle Ben’s underwear drawer. Skinny dipping in the pool, chasing after each other. 

“Yes,” he says. “You are. You will always be my girl, my only girl. But not that girl. Do you understand?” 

She stands up abruptly. Stalks over to him with her fists clenched, and her eyes hard. He prepares himself to receive a resounding slap when she pulls him into a fierce embrace. 

“You stupid fool,” she says, sobbing into his shoulder. “You stupid excuse for a best friend.” 

Relief courses through him, and he shuts his eyes, burying his nose in her hair. It smells of strawberries. 

“I love you,” she says, breaking away. “For a while, I thought I was in love with you, but I’m not. I just really, really love you, Peter. You’re my best friend.” 

“I know,” he tells her. “I know. You’re my best friend too.” 

Something that had been prickling inside him since the morning settles in his chest, humming contentedly like a satisfied cat. 

-

Dusk in these parts is a blue haze, dripping down over the town like ocean water. 

The balcony faces west, and the setting sun always leaves a warm glow in the sky like a departing lover whose presence is still felt in the sheets that smell of them. When Peter looks out onto the balcony having worked in his lab almost feverishly all day, it's to find Tony standing there in a pale blue shirt and shorts, the surrounding air full of cigarette smoke. 

“You avoided me all day,” Peter says, standing a safe distance away. 

Tony turns around once to look at him before facing away once more. “Come here,” he says, low and gravelly, like pitch being poured on a dirt road. 

Peter walks up, feeling awkward in an unfamiliar way. When he’s close enough, Tony turns again, unexpectedly pulling him in closer, until they are almost nose-to-nose. 

“I was afraid,” Tony says, and the warmth of it sends shivers down Peter's spine, “that the moment I saw you or spoke to you, I would not be able to resist doing this.” 

His lips ghost over the juncture of Peter’s neck and collarbone, and he arches his back, gasping. “You do know, ah–” Peter breaks off, as tremors wrack his body, “–that I would not have, ahh, minded, right?” 

Tony laughs, and the sound washes over Peter’s skin like a wave of pure, blissful heat. “Well of course. But then your Aunt… I doubt she would have appreciated this at the dinner table.” 

Peter can’t help the laugh that bubbles up in him. “So you pushed me aside, hiding in here saying you wanted no visitors, avoiding me at mealtimes merely because you think I'm irresistible, Mr Stark?” 

“Hell yes.” 

They pull away from each other. At that moment in the darkening dusk with the smoke of Tony’s long pull of the cigarette still lingering in the air, everything seems perfect. 

“Can I kiss you?” Tony asks, an edge of urgency creeping into his voice. 

“Yes, please,” Peter responds and their mouths meet in glorious, glorious union once more. It is only their second kiss but Peter feels he has been doing this all his life. It feels so acutely like coming home. The sense of familiarity in the taste of smoke on Tony’s lips, the scent of his cologne in Peter’s nose, his warm skin pressed against Peter’s body- it feels like paradise on Earth. 

“Take me to bed,” Peter pleads, eventually breaking away. “Please.” 

Tony looks so uncertain that Peter deflates. “I mean, if you don’t want to…” he mutters trailing off. 

“No!” Tony exclaims immediately. “No, Christ, Peter, don’t ever think that. I want to. Of course I do. I’m just…” 

“Still thinking of propriety?” Peter asks, with his eyes narrowed. 

“Someone has to,” Tony responds dryly.

“Why do you keep thinking–” Peter asks, running his hands down Tony’s chest, sliding them up under his shirt, bringing them up to rest on his nipples, and flicking them slightly, “–of propriety–” Tony gasps, eyes widening, “–when you could keep having me do this?” 

He takes Tony’s hand in his, bringing it up to his mouth, and looks Tony pointedly in the eye when he asks, “When you could have me doing this?” sucking in two fingers unceremoniously without breaking eye contact. He pulls away, watching the way Tony’s pupils blow up, takes Tony’s wet fingers and brings them down to rest against his crotch, against the cotton fabric of the boxers, “When you could do this?” 

Just as he had hoped, Tony shakes his head, pushes Peter back against the door that leads to Tony’s bedroom and says, “Fuck propriety.” 

He keeps a hand on Peter's chest, pushing him further back, stumbling and crashing into furniture until the back of his knees hit the bed. He lets himself fall onto it, and Tony climbs up, looming over him like a panther, both powerful and graceful at once. “Fuck propriety,” he says again, lowering his mouth to Peter’s and Peter helplessly giggles into the kiss. 

-

It is past midnight when Peter wakes up. 

His skin is sticky from the residue of their lovemaking that neither of them had the energy to clean up in the post-coital haze enveloping them both in its sleepy glow. 

Outside, it is dark. The moon is a ghostly lantern in the darkness of the sky. The tree outside the window looks like something out of a horror novel, its dry branches swaying like deformed arms in the breeze. 

Tony’s arm is thrown over his waist and his chin rests on his shoulder. Though it is stiflingly hot, Peter can’t bear to throw him off. 

That is until Tony’s voice in his ear startles him terribly, “Can’t sleep?” 

“Oh, Christ, what the fuck?” Peter almost shouts, turning to face the man. 

“Can’t sleep either,” Tony shrugs. 

“I just woke up.” 

“I know.” 

“Watching me sleep?” Peter asks with a smirk that transforms into a smile when he takes in Tony's softened expression. Tony rolls his eyes, bringing his hand up to twirl in Peter's curls which flop every which way over the pillow. 

Peter turns onto his back. Into the ensuing silence he says, “Why didn’t we start doing this from the beginning?” 

Tony laughs incredulously. “You despised me in the beginning.” 

“Didn’t stop me from jerking off to the thought of this," Peter says with a candid shrug. "I wish I knew it could have been a reality then.” 

“Stop saying things like that,” Tony murmurs and Peter turns to notice his pupils have dilated, making his eyes flash something feral in the bright moonlight. He shivers. “It makes me want to forget… decorum.” 

“Decorum, my ass,” Peter snorts. “You weren’t talking about decorum when my legs were up by your ears.” 

Tony covers Peter’s mouth with his hand, an amused twinkle in his eyes. “One would think, Peter Parker,” he says, leaning in closer, “that you are trying to rile me up.” 

Peter smiles against Tony’s palm. 

Oh, Tony Stark doesn’t have half a clue what he signed up for.


	9. Chapter Nine

They settle into a rhythm. 

Not what one usually understands by ‘rhythm’– the daily routines and mundaneness of every day, but instead the rhythm of summer storms- passionate, earth-shattering, and tinged with the inevitability of the coming end. 

Tony does his research, and Peter stays in his lab but both of them find themselves together somewhere or the other with alarming frequency. Sometimes it's on a table in Peter’s lab, with Peter’s arse in the air and Tony’s face buried in it, while the table shakes from Peter’s writhing movements. Once it was under Tony’s desk in his room, with his dick in Peter’s mouth. Tony had pretended to work on his research throughout, but Peter had caught a glimpse of the pages of ‘work’. It had been scribbled gibberish. He hadn’t been able to help the flicker of pride at the knowledge that he had reduced Tony to that state of undone passion. 

Every night, they find themselves tangled in either Peter’s bed or Tony’s. It's always without clothes, hot, fevered bodies sliding against each other, mumbled nonsense falling from trembling lips. The quiet composure and cocksure confidence Tony maintains falls apart in Peter’s hands, and Peter forgets his incessant stream of words when his huffs of breath form Tony’s name over and over. 

They don’t just fuck, though. They talk. 

They talk about what Peter wants to do when he finishes school, what Tony wants to do with his company when he goes back to Manhattan. They talk about the little town Peter stays in and what Peter has seen there, while Tony regales him with the tales of New Yorkers and their quaint lives. One day, as Tony tells him about the homeless man near Times Square, Peter realises with a jolt that his initial understanding of Tony Stark– a rich man without anything backing up the personality– couldn’t have been further from the truth. 

He’s happy. 

But in the rare few moments, he finds himself alone with only his thoughts for company, they crowd in on him. This will end, he thinks, staring out into the fading dusk, as Tony works in his room. This will stop, and he will leave and when that happens, where will I be? 

When these thoughts plague him for too long, he seeks Tony out, pressing kisses to any bare expanse of skin, pulling and tugging at fabric, murmuring off, off, off, and Tony takes them off, bless the man, and fucks him through the mattress. Except, to Peter, it stopped being ‘fucking’ a fair few days ago and became ‘making love’. It makes Peter's heart clench every time he thinks about it. 

Tony will leave. Peter cannot be in love with the man where chances are he will never see him again after this. 

But here he is. 

– 

Tony figures it out soon enough. 

Peter has been missing all day when the boy usually turns up every two hours at least once to bother Tony with something or the other. Sometimes it ends in sex, and sometimes they get derailed from the topic discussing something tangential and irrelevant. 

Today, there has been conspicuous absence. 

Tony misses him. 

He gets up from his hunched position at the table, stretching his arms over his head to relieve the kinks, and decides to go find the boy. He’s probably in the lab anyway, caught up in something, having lost track of time. 

When he reaches the attic, the door is locked on the inside. He knocks and when he receives no answer, he’s about to move away, disappointed, when the door flies open. Peter stands here, shirtless, his hair damp from sweat, arms crossed over his chest. When he sees Tony, his arms drop and he moves aside, a silent invitation for him to enter. His eyes are downcast and his shoulders are slightly bowed, and Tony feels the shift in his personality like an atmospheric difference. 

'Worried' doesn’t even begin to cover what he feels. 

He walks in, and Peter shuts the door, leaning against it. Instead of saying anything, Tony turns Peter’s face towards himself, keeping it that way as he bends to press a delicate kiss to his cheekbone. When he draws back, there’s a lingering taste of salt on his lips. Tony realises with sudden shock that Peter has been crying. 

“What happened?” he asks, hearing the edge of ferocity creep into his voice. 

Peter shakes his head, futilely trying to look away but the vice-like grip Tony has on his jaw doesn’t allow him. He struggles slightly before the fight goes out of him, and he sags in Tony’s arms, limp and defeated. 

“You’re going to leave.” 

The muffled words come out wet and strangled against Tony's chest. His heart constricts. But it is the indisputable truth. He doesn’t have any words of comfort to console Peter with, so he does the only other thing he can– clutches Peter tighter. 

“You’re going to leave,” Peter says, broken and lost, and Tony can’t bear the pain bleeding into his voice. 

“Yes, I will,” Tony says, trying to keep his tears at bay. “But I don’t think I can forget you.” 

Peter shakes against him, body trembling like a leaf. “Promise me that,” he begs. The pleading, frantic turn to his voice shatters Tony’s heart further. 

“I promise,” he murmurs, delicately, pressing his mouth to the shell of Peter's ear. He traces the whorl of it with the tip of his finger and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the sweat-slicked temple. 

Peter jerks away suddenly. “Take me to bed,” he says roughly, eyes flashing. “Please, just seal that promise, prove it to me–” He’s cut off by Tony covering his mouth with his own. 

“Shut up,” Tony whispers into the taste of garden peaches in Peter's mouth. Peter keens softly. 

They make love in the lab, the floor cold and hard against Peter’s back. It is uncomfortable, the angle is awkward, and Peter sobs intermittently when Tony hits his sweet spots. 

It's brilliant. 

Tony has never felt anything as glorious as this connection, this jubilance, this satisfaction. Peter’s body doesn’t stop trembling, but Tony holds him close and the shaking mitigates somewhat. 

I love you, Tony thinks silently. God help me, but I love you. 

– 

“I’ll be heading back to Manhattan next week,” Tony tells Peter when they’re both lying in bed together, legs tangled. 

“I know,” Peter whispers. It almost goes unheard in his rushed exhale, but Tony hears the pain Peter tries to keep from him. 

Both of them remain silent for a while. 

“Don’t leave,” Peter says at the exact moment Tony says, “Come with me.” 

Peter turns to face him, an incredulous look on his face. 

"What?" 

"Come with me," Tony repeats, reaching out to cup Peter's cheek in his palm. "Come with me to New York, stay with me, let me give you everything you've ever wanted." 

“Would you really let me?” Peter asks, hope colouring his voice. “For a weekend or something?” 

“Of course I would,” Tony responds quietly, his hands tracing patterns on Peter’s back. “You could stay with me in Stark Tower if you wanted. I’d even book you a hotel if that suits you better. I’d spend all my time with you if you let me.” 

Peter’s breath hitches. 

The words rise in his throat and he can't swallow them down like he has the innumerable times in the past. “I love yo–” Tony begins, but Peter slaps his hand over his mouth immediately. His eyes are bright, shining with unshed tears. 

“Don’t you dare,” he whispers, voice shaking. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me you love me when you’re telling me you’re going to leave me here for your perfect billionaire life. You might be able to go back to something there but I will have nothing left here. You get the best of both worlds and I get the interstellar vacuum, that’s not fucking fair.” His thin chest is heaving with every breath he takes. “Telling me you love me is not some consolation prize you can leave me with. I can’t, I can’t–”

The tears build behind Tony’s eyes. He doesn't know how to respond to that tirade, so he kisses the palm Peter has pressed against his lips, gently twining their fingers together. He brings Peter's knuckles to his lips, kissing each with a tenderness that pours from his soul into every action. 

He tries to not notice Peter crying his eyes out and fails miserably. 

–

Peter walks into his lab to find Tony sitting at the table in the swivel chair, spinning around, reading a book. 

The unexpected presence of the man in his space startles Peter but instead of asking why or what the fuck, the words that come out are, “When did you get here?” 

Tony looks up at him, an easy grin on his face. God, he’s beautiful, Peter thinks, heart clenching. “Contrary to what you believe, kid, I can wake up before you. I just prefer not to.” 

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. “Maybe you should stop calling me kid given that you have your dick buried in my ass almost every night.” 

Tony’s smile turns into a grimace and Peter can feel the corners of his lips twitching slightly. “I dare you,” he snickers, “To say ‘kids these days…’ in response to that.” 

“Fuck right off,” Tony mock scowls. 

“What do you want?” Peter asks, finally, when Tony makes no move to get out of Peter's chair. 

The surety fades out of Tony’s features. Something nervous and unfamiliar replaces it on his face. “I just wanted to ask you something.” 

Dropping to the floor, Peter shrugs and says, “Fire away.” 

“What do you want to do after you’re done with school?” 

“Go to university, isn’t that a bit obvious?” Peter asks. “I think I told you that sometime before anyway.” 

“You did, I just meant, which university?” Tony’s flexing his fingers, a sign that his anxiety is bubbling underneath the surface but he isn’t allowing it to rise. 

“Something here, I guess,” Peter shrugs. “I don’t have the money to go to Columbia though I got in. I thought I told you that too.” 

“You did,” Tony repeats. He looks down and swivels around a few times. 

Finally, at the end of the tether of his patience, Peter questions, “Why all these questions now?” 

“Because I have an idea.” 

Peter drums his fingers on the floor. 

“It involves you going to Columbia,” Tony continues, hesitantly meeting his eyes. 

Peter stops drumming his fingers. 

“You intern at Stark Industries part-time, we use some of the things you come up with in this lab and we all go places and instead of paying you, I sponsor you going to Columbia.” 

Peter can feel his mouth opening and shutting like a fish. 

“I spoke to your Aunt and Uncle,” Tony continues after a breath. “They said they wouldn’t have an issue as long as you agreed. And well…” He looks sheepish. 

“What?” Peter manages. 

“They know about us. And when I went on to explain that I would have no issue if you lived with me if you chose to accept that is, they sort of raised their eyebrows and said they knew already.” 

“You’re not fucking with me?” Peter asks at last when the weight of the conversation has truly sunk in. “You’re not pulling some colossal prank on me so that breaking up with you will be easier? Because if that’s the idea, it’s working. If you tell me you don't mean the shit you're saying right now, I'm not–” 

“That’s not the idea.” 

“I-I–”, Peter mumbles a few times, blinking stupidly at Tony, trying to wrap his head around the idea. “I don’t know how to accept that. I don’t know how I could pay you back.” 

Tony suggestively wriggles his hips. Peter snorts inelegantly. “If you think I am prostituting myself for university fees, you can think again.” 

Tony’s expression turns serious. “If you let us use the web fluid in some of our techs, that profit alone would be enough to cover most of the salaries I pay. I could probably fire a couple of guys in R&D. Your university fees aren’t even a fraction of what you’re giving me if you work with me on the fluid.” 

“Please don’t fire anyone,” Peter says horrified, latching on to the one part of everything Tony just said that seems manageable to him. 

Tony stares at him for a few seconds before bursting into loud laughter. “Oh Christ,” he manages when he has composed himself somewhat, “You give me no response on the, dare I say, life-changing offer I just made you, but you’re worried about the useless pair of idiots in research who do nothing but watch porn all day under the pretext of collecting data.” 

“Well then,” Peter says, biting his lip, “You should probably fire them.” 

Tony starts laughing again. 

Peter’s eventual, tentative, “I think- I think I can accept that. As long I get to intern and earn my uni fees. I’m not a prostitute,” shuts him up immediately. 

The way Tony looks at him the minute he says the words sends heat sparking up Peter's body. Tony gets up from the chair, stalking over to him and hauls him up to drag him into a kiss so searing and intense that it leaves Peter gasping minutes after it ends.


	10. Epilogue

“I can tie my own tie, you know?” Peter grumbles. 

“My boyfriend is giving his first presentation as Head of R&D, I can tie his tie for him to show some appreciation.” 

“That doesn’t even make sense. This isn't appreciative, it's condescending.” 

“It does in my head,” Tony says, biting his lip lightly, pulling the tie tight. He looks up at Peter who can’t help but notice how gorgeous the man is when he smiles like that, his whole face lighting up. 

“I can do it, right?” Peter asks him, nerves showing finally, despite his best attempts to keep them locked away. 

“ I didn’t make you the youngest Head of Research and Development just to make a point to those old cads who don’t know shit, you know that, right?” Tony counter-questions. 

Peter laughs. 

“They’ll be there though, ready to pick me apart like a bunch of vultures.” 

“And I will be there to pick them apart if you need it. But you and I both know you don’t. There’s a reason you’re Head and they’re not.” 

“I don’t want to let you down,” Peter says, ultimately. “I really want to be worth everything you’ve been with me through.” 

“You are,” Tony says, seriously, drawing Peter’s face near, and brushing a gentle kiss over his eyelids. “You’re worth every bit.” 

“If it all fails and I have to leave the company, I am prostituting myself to you, you know that right?” Peter asks, keeping a straight face. 

“Yes, love, I know that. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be late and I really don’t want you prostituting yourself, no matter how appealing the prospect is,” Tony responds. 

“Tell me you love me,” Peter says, tugging Tony by his tie just as he’s about to turn away. 

“I love you,” his boyfriend chuckles, leaning closer. “I fucking adore you. I know you’ll make me proud today.” 

Peter nods, and closes his eyes, drawing in a deep breath. He straightens his tie, steadying himself for a minute. When he finally opens them, he smiles up at Tony and feeling just a slight tingle of mischief in his gut, says, “Let’s go, Mr Stark. Long day ahead of us.”

**Author's Note:**

> Do you see what I mean by self-indulgence? 
> 
> Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
